Would-be activists train in Boca Raton for nonviolent protests

Residents gathered Sunday at the West Boca Branch Library to take part in… (Jim Rassol, Sun Sentinel )

April 15, 2012|By Mike Clary, Sun Sentinel

West Boca Raton — For those who gathered Sunday in the library meeting room, the issues were as varied as their lives and experiences.

Affordable health care for all, an end to war, outsized corporate influence in politics, the foreclosure crisis and voter registration were just a few of the themes mentioned.

But what all agreed on was that the moment for direct, nonviolent action is now.

"It is time for them to see our faces," said Linda Marsch, 64, of Delray Beach, one of about 25 men and women from Palm Beach and Broward counties who showed up at the Palm Beach County library branch west of Boca Raton for a four-hour training session in effective protest. "The middle class is facing an economic tsunami, and we have to do something about it."

Organized by a coalition of groups, including Move On and several labor unions, the meeting was one of many taking place across the country as activists hoped to train 100,000 people Sunday and to build on the momentum of Occupy Wall Street and what came to be known as the 99 percent.

"This spring we rise!" announced an umbrella organization called The 99% Spring on its website. "We will take non-violent action in the spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi to forge a new destiny one block, one neighborhood, one city, one state at a time."

Joni Albrecht, a Move On member from Delray Beach and one of the facilitators of the workshop, said, "We want to take people's frustrations, unite around a plan of action and use that to bring about change. Voting used to be enough. But no more."

Participants were urged to come up with their own events and protest targets, and they were invited to join in a nationwide general strike set for May 1. A 3 p.m. demonstration is scheduled that day in Delray Beach at Swinton and Atlantic avenues, Albrecht said.

Following a guide designed by The 99% Spring, the workshop included a video that led participants in exercises designed to identify areas of local or personal concern. In small groups, they shared personal stories and took part in role-playing exercises to prepare them for real-life situations.

Dennis Shuman, 55, a real estate broker from Boca Raton, and Vikyat Miryala, 21, a student at Florida Atlantic University, stood face to face and took turns playing the part of a bank manager and a customer who was moving his money to a credit union as a protest of corporate greed.

"These are real issues," said Miryala. "I could imagine doing this."

The video also included film and pictures of historic events meant to inspire: Rosa Parks' well-planned 1955 front seat ride that triggered the Montgomery bus boycott, organizing by the United Auto Workers and Cesar Chavez's United Farm Workers, and 1980s protests by AIDS activists that led to recognition of the epidemic.

"I have been trying to get someone to listen since 2004," said Gloria Lewis, 48, a waitress from Fort Lauderdale who said she feels so strongly about society's inequalities and the unresponsiveness of politicians that she self-published a book, "Culture Shock," that details her failed American dream.

Said facilitator Charlie Dortch, 60, "This is grass-roots at the highest level. We want people to go and take action."